what says the body when they spring

some monster torture-engine's whole

strength on it? no more says the soul.

count gismond.

flying is no sport for the sluggard. the calmest hours of the twenty-four are often those before the dawn, and the earnest aviator must be ready to turn out of his warm bed at six, five, four, even three o'clock in the morning, whether in the pleasant summer, or in the correspondingly unpleasant winter. he may then have to spend long hours at the 'drome waiting for the fog to lift, or the rain to clear, or the wind to drop; and in the end, as like as not, he may have to go home, wet, chilly, and sleepy, without having flown a yard. decidedly not the sport for a sluggard.

six a.m. in mid-october, and bitterly cold. there was a gray sky, ripple on ripple of quilted cloud with never a gleam, and a small icy wind that blew persistently from the north. the coarse bice-green of the marshes was all discolored; the sedge, biscuit-pale, was clotted with mud from the september floods; the brimming dikes were ruled by the wind into long ripples, hard and black against the dawn. the dawn itself, how wan and threatening! denis, surveying the signs of the sky as he unlocked the hangar, exerted himself to remark to simpson that it looked like rain. simpson, expert mechanic and latter-day grimaud, assented with his civil grunt. his uncivil grunt he did not use on denis, who had once been his officer.

like every worker who spins his stuff out of his own brain, denis at times "went stale." for the past ten days the flying boat had been laid aside, and he had been tinkering[pg 154] at the monoplane by way of relaxation. never losing sight of the function for which she had been built, that of a small fast scout in the war which he expected, he was always adding small improvements. thus, after his experience in the birmingham race, he had fitted her with self-starting gear, which enabled the pilot to get away at will, independent of outside help. now he was working at a brake. landing is still one of the chief dangers in cross-country flying, especially in england, where fields are small, and there is often a web of overhead wires. at that time (1913) there were not a dozen aerodromes in the kingdom, and not one a?roplane in ten had a brake of any sort.

theoretically, denis's new design was all it should be; practically, of course, it might upset the machine and kill the pilot. not that denis ever believed he would be killed. "the airman hath said in his heart, tush, i shall never be cast down, there shall no harm happen unto me." he believed other people might be killed, however, and for this reason had severely snubbed simpson when he offered to take on the trials. simpson, faithful dog, bore no resentment. he had been watching the events of the past few weeks, and had come to the conclusion that 'e (in simpson's mind denis was always 'e) wasn't to say accountable just now. "you'd 'a' thought 'e might 'a' took warning by muster wandesforde," he reflected. "'e's a nice gent spoiled by the women, if ever there was one. but no. jane! jane! 'ave you got that stooed steak on yet? you ain't? then it'll be as tough as your shoe again. 'e ain't complained? 'e lef' the lot at the side of 'is plate last time, and if that ain't complainin' i dono what is. now you get it on at once and let's hear no more chat. seems to me you ain't good for anything, 'cep that bein' so deaf you can't gossip. women," added simpson, knocking out his pipe against his boot, "they're the devil!"

after some preliminary "taxi-ing" on the ground, denis rose, circling over the marshes. the country was asleep; pillars of smoke rose from cottage chimneys, but not a soul was abroad except the milkman, with his rattling silver cans,[pg 155] and a solitary cyclist, spinning down the road towards dent-de-lion. the cyclist waved a greeting; the blasé milkman did not so much as glance up. denis sailed over them, over the roof of his house, turned into the wind, "flattened out" (i.e. brought level the nose of his machine, which had been gliding down a slant) and grounded on the turf without a jar. the brake acted perfectly. simpson ran up, almost enthusiastic. he and denis stood together talking shop (which was the sum of simpson's talk) with zeal (simpson supplying the zeal).

"hi!"

denis turned, screwing up his short-sighted eyes. at sight of the approaching figure his jaw dropped; he spoke one curt imperious sentence over his shoulder to simpson, seized the new-comer's arm, dragged him back to the house, thrust him into the parlor and locked the door upon him, all without a word. gardiner was left gasping. here was a reception! but in a minute denis was back, pushing open the door with a tray of breakfast crockery and the inevitable sausages. he deposited his burden on the table, which was already laid, and turned to lock the door again.

"what on earth possessed you to come here? i've shut up simpson, and he'll hold his tongue, but i'd not answer for miss simpson, if she saw you. you must be mad!"

"mad?—to come here? i'm not running from the police, my good denis; did you think i was?"

"i understood your brother to say—"

"oh, you've heard from tom, have you?" gardiner's tone was a shade less confident. "yes, i admit i did do a bunk from woodlands; they took me by surprise, and i wasn't ready for 'em; i had two-three things to finish off—among others, i wanted a word with you. which is why i'm here. but as soon as i've swallowed the sausage which i trust you're going to offer me i'm off to margate to surrender to the minions of the law."

"i thought you couldn't stand prison," said denis. "i thought it was the one risk you weren't prepared to face. however, it's no business of mine. if you can face it, i[pg 156] certainly think you're wise to. mustard? oh, i forgot, you don't take it, do you?"

he poured out a cup of miss simpson's rich, muddy coffee for gardiner and another for himself, but he did not drink; he went to the window and stood looking down the road. gardiner, who was famished, drew up his chair; but his eyes kept straying to that silent figure. there was something in the wind that he did not like. denis was utterly unlike himself, unlike any self his friend had ever had a glimpse of. he was so unapproachable that gardiner knew not how to broach the errand that had brought him there. presently, however, he turned to attend to geraldine, who was winding round his boots and opening her little pink mouth in soundless mews of ecstasy. as he rose from putting down the saucer, he caught gardiner's eye, and smiled faintly.

"sorry, harry. 'fraid i've rather let you down over this business. anybiddy else would have made a better hand at it. but i'm not much good at dissembling, and tell a lie i cann't—any babe could see through it. else i'd have done my best."

"my dear chap, i don't want you to tell lies for me!" said gardiner hastily. he was more than surprised; he was appalled. "in point of fact, i'm not sorry it has come out. i've had no peace of my life these last two months, with mrs. trent going about like an unexploded bomb. i knew she'd never rest till she harried me into the dock." he perceived, as he spoke, a certain change in the atmosphere. denis had been sufficiently far away before; now he seemed to recede to the north pole. there was a snapshot of dorothea in her flying kit on the mantelpiece. was this the explanation? surely not! surely she was the last woman in the world to attract a man like denis! gardiner, be it remembered, had never met that eager child who had learned to fly. "it's about her i want to speak to you," he broke the ice determinedly. "here's the point. do you, or do you not, remember what trent said in that last speech of his, just before i let fly at him?"

[pg 157]

"i'm hardly likely to forget it."

"no, no, not the sense, the words; the actual phrasing he used. do you remember that?"

he took a moment to think. "perhaps not. no, not to swear to."

"good! then it's all plain sailing. tell everything that happened up till then; be as discursive as you please about my share in the business; but say, and swear, and stick to it that you can't remember that last speech, and at any price don't let it be dragged out of you."

"very well."

"at any price, you understand?"

"at any price?"

"yes; absolutely without reserve, at any price."

"i understand."

"that's off my mind, then," said gardiner with a breath of relief. "i had to see you, to make sure we should both be in the same tale. now i'll be off to margate while the iron's hot."

"wait a moment," said denis, detaining him. "before you go into this quixotic business i think you ought to see what it means. of course i know you've been making light of it to spare my feelings, but i don't believe you yourself realize what it is you're up against. it's serious. i'm afraid they're going to make it a perjury charge. i had the police up here for hours yesterday—they wanted to run me in too—"

"you? oh, my god, denis! they're not going to do that?"

"no, i don't think so. what's the matter with you?"

"i never dreamed of that," said gardiner, holding his head in his hands. "i swear i never dreamed there was the remotest possibility of that! to drag you, of all men, into this filthy mess—" he dropped his hands and looked up, speaking fast and free: "of course you're right. i have been humbugging. i know i'm in for a stiff sentence. i'd never thought of perjury as a possible charge. but i give you my word, denis, if i'd ever had the faintest idea there[pg 158] was the faintest risk of involving you, i'd have—i'd have blown my brains out first. oh, lettice was right; it is a fatal thing to be a coward."

"lettice?"

"i went to her on my way. yes, i did mean to bolt in the first instance; i've got my rig-out strapped on my bike at this instant. it was she stopped me. she does know how to sting up your conscience! but they can't really drag you in, denis, can they? you never did actually say one syllable beyond the truth. did you make them see that?"

"i think so," said denis. "i don't think they'll take it any further. and if they did, they couldn't convict. it's all right. i don't know what you're putting yourself about for."

"perjury, denis? it's not a pretty charge."

"no," said denis. "still, i don't know that it much matters."

how quietly he spoke! at grasmere he had shrunk from the slightest innocent contact with the story; but here was the stain black on his own honor, and it moved him no more than did his friend's remorse. gardiner had once said it would go hard with denis if his idols tumbled off their pedestals. this indifference was worse than his worst fears. would he ever find his way back? or was there some hidden mischief, some deadly internal injury at which gardiner could only guess? what had dorothea done—what had she killed when she struck her blow? there grew on the young man, watching, a sense of disaster....

denis had drifted back to the window and stood there, absently whistling his one tune:

"c'est difficile de voir voler orville;

c'est bien plus dur de voir voler wilbur—"

suddenly he broke off and bent forward in quick attention.

"anything up?" said gardiner.

denis wheeled and swiftly pushed him back from the window.

"the police."

[pg 159]

"what, have they come to pump you again?"

"no, it's you they're after."

"nonsense, man! how can they know i'm here?"

"evans has told them."

"who's evans?"

"the man who brings the milk. he was at the door when you arrived. he's coming up the road with them now."

"but how the deuce should evans—"

"your description's out, and a reward. five hundred pounds. he must have gone straight off to the police station."

"five hundred pounds!" gardiner was as white as his shirt. "who offered it?"

denis would not answer or look at him. there was no need; gardiner knew well enough who had offered it, and the shock made him sick. did she indeed hate him so much as all that?

"well, they'll save me the trouble of going to margate," he said as lightly as he could, and moved towards the door. denis stopped him.

"wait. think. if you're taken now, like this, you'll not be allowed bail. you'll be in prison till the february assizes."

"—break me in by degrees!" said gardiner in a sort of gasp, still pressing towards the door. denis still held him back.

"will you cut it?"

"how can i?"

"quite simple. the monoplane's out at the back—i told simpson to have her ready. he'll swear anything i like to tell him, and miss simpson never saw you at all. you've only to say the word, and i'll set you down in france within the hour."

"you, denis? you advise me to run?"

"why not?" said denis. "i think the point-of-honor stunt is overdone. it doesn't pay."

gardiner's ideas of right and wrong were all tumbling about his ears. that denis should advise such a thing! it[pg 160] went more than half-way towards making it seem right. it showed, too, that he dreaded the ordeal of the witness-box, and lent a specious color of unselfishness to the plan. and in those last moments of liberty gardiner, like the prisoner of the inquisition, seemed to feel the flaming walls sliding together, contracting, closing in upon his life to drive him into the pit.... "if you're afraid of a thing"—that voice again! there was the touchstone.

"no," said gardiner. "no, i'm damned if i will!"

he walked out and threw open the door to the police.